Coma Black
by Riki
Summary: Songfic RikimaruAyame


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Tenchu or anything related to it and I certainly do not own Marilyn Manson or his lyrics. …It would be fun to own Him thought…;) R&R please.

**Coma Black**

_My mouth was a crib and it was growing lies  
I didn't know what love was on that day  
my heart's a tiny bloodclot  
I picked at it  
it never heals it never goes away  
_

He was enclosed by villagers, few mercenaries and ninjas, passing him by in the night. He looked down at them, walking on the street, towards something none of them knew what. It was raining heavily on their backs. Except for Rikimaru, who was standing on the balcony, which was well covered from the rain. Heart empty he stared down, ahead of him, observing how the solid ground turned in to unpleasant mud that would gave away under a weight.

He hardly noticed how the moist coldness went to his skin.

Fingers that were once stained by the blood of his loved one, gripped the wooden railing. His usually so strong spirit gone and mind full of black, he envied those who could keep walking on. To keep on living everyday like nothing had happened and yet, everything was lost.

_How many years…? _He closed his eyes tightly from the place that was surrounding him. _…Did we spend in lies…?_

**x¤X¤x**

Ayame was standing on a grassy hill side, waiting for her pulse to get back to normal. Or maybe she was just marvelling the colours of autumn at the riverbank. She had been practising some new moves she had seen some ninja do. Silently she smiled to her self and thought how easy it was to copy and how she couldn't wait to try it on action. Maybe she could finally compete with Rikimaru's shoulder thrust.

Wind blew rather warmly but it held a promise of rain. Powerful, dark blue clouds emphasised nice against the red and orange three tops across the river.

She really shouldn't do this, get caught up like this, she thought. It was happening more often now.

_Why? _

Ayame looked over her shoulder and saw that Rikimaru was standing on the hill, little upper than she and closer to the forest.

Once more she clanked over the scenery and started walking up the hill. She had only had the time to take a few steps when Rikimaru came to her. She noticed him looking, not the breath taking scenery but her face, in a way she had only recently learned to know. But even now she couldn't tell exactly what might he be thinking. It was likely for him to get caught up deep in thought, but this time there was something different. She smiled sincere and turned to look at the river not wanting to say anything stupid that might ruin the undisturbed atmosphere. She wasn't the one to break it.

"You…"

Ayame looked at him surprised and found him still staring.

"…Are so…" As if Rikimaru had just realized he was talking aloud he fell silent.

"What?" Smirk covered her face as she was expecting some idiotic comment about her self.

All thought Rikimaru had knew it all along, only now he had let him self admit it. It was the first time he had searched for what he felt inside for her, what feelings beside the obvious she brought up. When it was that he had intentionally started deny it? He knew he had all ways cared about her, of course she was the closest thing he got trough out his live. He had all ways yearned for her and now it seemed he was beginning to admit that he had all ways loved her too?

He knew he shouldn't. He knew he shouldn't want to be with her every day, hold her close and safe from the bad things in world, and let everything else fall apart but not her. He'd kept his feelings so long a secret and come to this point he felt like braking. He didn't want to hold it back from her, even if her feelings weren't as solemn as his; there was a change those would be. He was so tired of the lies when all he wanted was to shout it out.

"…What…?" Ayame looked serious.

But it wasn't really a question of how would she react or feel about it. If only it would have been so simple.

Rikimaru gave her a slop smile to tell or rather not to tell. He had put his hands to her hips and came closer to embrace.

"…Nothing…" He hoped she would let it slide but had a feeling, they knew each other better than that. He saw it in her eyes before she even pushed him further to be able to look at him properly.

"…Nothing, huh?"

Slowly he grabbed Ayame's hands from between them and brought them down beside them, keeping their fingers crossed.

"…It's nothing that you wanna hear right now…"

"I don't?" She asked rising an eyebrow, but relieved in a strange way. "…You were going to say something, about me, that I'll make you be sorry for, later… something like that?" She had to rise up to her toes just a bit to nip at his lip or she would have if she wasn't still waiting an answer. She was easy pray when she really didn't want to hold back and her hands were already off the game, she melted in a kiss with him, but a single kiss wasn't going to put her mind at ease. That he already knew and placed little kisses over her jaw line.

"I love you…" He whispered quickly in to her ear like it would have been the dirtiest words he had ever pronounced. He could feel her tensing up before she pulled away to gaze at him again and she looked so strange with that expression she had in her eyes.

_I burned all the good things in The Eden Eye  
we were too dumb to run too dead to die  
_

**x¤X¤x**

Maybe he never should have told her, Rikimaru thought. She might still be alive if he had just pushed his feelings aside once more and time after time, maybe he could still be holding it back and she'd be there to make it even harder. Would it really have been that hard to obey the rules when he had done that as long as he remembered? Guess he deserved it, but she had nothing to do with it.

_I did kill her?_

It was late, he noticed as there weren't many people down the street. The humming rain hadn't gone anywhere.

**x¤X¤x**

She wanted to get away and so she did by pulling herself free and stepping backwards.

"…You… should have not said that…" She hadn't expected to hear those three little words from him, especially when it was against the rules for two ninja's to get emotionally too attached. And he wasn't just her clan brother but leader, which made it even force. Needless to say, the clan didn't afford to slip and loose more of its members.

"…You're not serious, Rikimaru…? It's against the rules to… to platter out, just, something like… You of all the people should know that… If this is meant to be a test or a joke… it's not funny, not in a least bit…!"

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's the truth what I have said …I have offended you…?" He asked.

"…Don't you remember why those rules are so important…?" She said little softer now.

**x¤X¤x**

_Yes, why are those little rules so important…_ Rikimaru walked inside and closed the shoji behind his back.

Rules to prevent, just something similar to this happening. So what was happening, he asked him self already afraid of the answer.

Beside the point, it's immoral to love somebody if she's not your wife, because love usually leads to more immoralities. But in their case it was the other way around. Bending the rules, that was just denying what was really happening. He was starting to believe there would be better ways to live than to die by the shadows like you never even existed. All that was left was a cold pile of rocks and the memories of still living. He could never forget nor would Kiku. Thinking of that little girl shook Rikimaru away from the darkness for a second. Poor-Kiku, she will cry with out end, when he would tell her.

God damn, he was so sick of knowing what was expected from him. His superiors didn't even want to consider the possibility that he might have a mind of his own and would start to use it. Now that would proof to be dangerous weapon against every value he had treasured.

But it was too late to change the world, for her and for that matter, for him.

_I would have told her then  
she was the only thing  
that I could love in this dying world  
but the simple word "love" itself  
already died and went away  
_

**x¤X¤x**

"…Don't think, I haven't tried to suck it up… Can I make a mistake, at least one in a life time? Forgive, me my, moment of weakness, when I tried to be honest… simple human… after all, that is all that I can be…" He turned back around little calmer. "…But I broke a rule… I leave it up to you to dissuade my punishment."

"I do care about you, more than I should, but…"

He held a finger to her phrase "If you don't love me… Don't pity me instead."

"We don't afford such things as love. It complicates things and makes… live confusing…"

Was that hesitation in her voice, he looked up from the ground. "…Everything will be as it was before, if… That is what you want?"

She thought for a moment. "…I've wanted a lot of things… and about ever have my wishes come true… I never even dreamed about getting you… No, I don't want things to be the same anymore… I don't wanna live in a lie…"

**x¤X¤x**

He had laid down on a futon but didn't feel any short of sleep coming.

He tried to remember their good moments, god, if there were any bad ones. He couldn't forget and for that he was clad, in a way. But the truth was a cruel reminder that he wouldn't see her smile ever again.

Maybe he could just forget one memory, her death.

"I would kill myself, if it would bring you back… Aya…" He said softly. "I would kill my self to make the world pay for what it did to you…to us…"

_This was never my world  
you took the angel away  
I'd kill myself to make everybody pay  
This was never my world  
you took the angel away  
I'd kill myself to make everybody pay  
_

**x¤X¤x**

Ayame opened her eyes, her senses all too tired and numb to tell her anything. First thing she realized that she had never felt so weak in her whole life.

Something moved over her stomach and she tried to move to wake herself up. She managed just a small nudge and strange pain hit her. Ayame knew what pain felt like, but this pain didn't hurt so much. It was like she had been looking someone else suffering.

"Don't move…"

Ayame recognised that deep voice that at times made her whole body hum. "…Rikimaru?" There was something so strange about him, this place, this feeling of pain mixed to numbness. She looked at the ceiling and turned her head to side. It was a small hut, but she couldn't remember it from before.

"…Where…?" Why was it so hard to speak?

"…In a hut across the forest, don't try to speak."

She didn't listen. "…You… sound strange?" She looked over her body laying on the red futon. She noticed the bandages over her stomach. Abruptly Ayame remembered that she had been founded.

**x¤X¤x**

He was sitting on the floor, leaning his back on the wall. The room was so still and calm. It needed something.

He had come here because it was the last place they had met before the incident. The walls whispered her name. If only the shadows could speak up.

"You weren't supposed to die…"

**x¤X¤x**

Suddenly the pain and tiredness was gone and she felt herself weightless. Ayame looked Rikimaru and maybe for the first time noticed how full of life he was. He hid it well like she did. Maybe it was the only way ninja could live or maybe not.

There was concern, she could see that. He was determent to safe her even as it was a task doomed to fail by now.

"I feel… so light…" Her words seem to have hit him hard.

"…Just rest…" He couldn't bring himself to look at her; he just kept on trying to stop the bleeding, in vain.

"…It won't… help me…" Ayame was surprised that she suddenly had the strength to move her hand and put it over his. He kept pressing the open cut with a cloth and look back in to her eyes. He had never been afraid so much than he was now.

Her other hand reached for him to come closer over the bed. She noticed her hand had a cut too and even as it was tied with a cloth a trace of fresh blood tinkled down her skin. His silvery hair stained into it while she let her hand slip trough.

Their heads together and breathing mixed slowly; she felt the tiers falling to her face from his eyes that were tightly shut at the moment. Ayame felt so out of this reality that she didn't know how to cry or otherwise she might have done it too.

He shook his head slightly. "Don't go, don't leave me. It's too soon…"

"…I know."

"You are the only thing I got left in this world… If you die…"

"Hush… It would have been so wonderful … Would've gotten married…?"

First he felt angry for her to be saying it like would never happen but eventually he just sighted a sad yes.

"…And had kids… How many?"

He could sense her slipping away bit by bit. "…I… four maybe…"

"…Four?" She smiled like in half sleep.

"I dunno, as many as you want, six?" They both smiled for a briefest moment before they fell into the silence.

Ayame crossed their fingers. "Remember that day… on the field…?"

"Of course…"

"…I don't regret it and… you shouldn't either… Promise…" Ayame swallowed when pain made it existence known. Rikimaru had to watch this powerless to do anything to help her.

"Promise, you won't do anything stupid… Promise?"

"…Why…?"

"Don't argue with me, Rikimaru"

"…I'm sorry…"

"Promise… Live your live for both of us, I know you have it in you…" She looked drowsy.

_I burned all the good things in The Eden Eye  
we were too dumb to run too dead to die  
_

"Ayame…!" Her eyes seemed to have lost their usual fire but then she smiled to calm him and moved a finger over his hand. Even in death she was stubborn.

"…I promise…" He really didn't know what had he promised He was too confused by the shock and the grief.

"That's good…" She said slowly and they stared at each other paralyzed, waiting and hoping that moment never to come. "Oh God… I love you so much…!" She cried all most laughed and her grip loosened from his hand.

"Ayame…? Ayame!"

**x¤X¤x**

_Her heart's bloodstained egg  
we didn't handle with care  
it's broken and bleeding  
and we can never repair_

Was it already morning, Rikimaru looked up to the window? Sun was rising up. Light irritated him. People who he could here talking on the street irritated him. Even the cat he sensed sleeping behind the wall, irritated him. Shadows of the night had turned into thin shades of black and the room felt emptier than few hours ago.

"Live? …How could I…?" He stopped in a middle of his sentence. There was no-one anymore to listen him speak or to give a witty answer.

Gone forever, he told him self all over again as long as it made him cry but it didn't help. Has pain come to will the empty space, now that she's gone, he thought wiping two tiers from his cheeks.

He thought he should go home. Going back alone seemed like a felony.

The room was cold and boring in a day light. A bit of blood would make it interesting. "Wouldn't it?" And maybe just not so little, but enough to colour the floor. First not even seriously thinking, Rikimaru took a kunai blade and flipped it in his hand. The sharp edge was surprisingly appealing.

"I wish it would have been me…" He took a firm hold of the kunai's handle; he knew just where to cut. _What if it had been me…?_ Would Ayame hurt as much as he did right now, he questioned, would she want to die?

He put the blade away, hearing her in a back of his head. He sensed someone coming to the door, it was time to leave. _Where to now, Ayame?_ Rikimaru rose up and silently went to the door that led to the balcony.

Across the room another door opened and the innkeeper looked inside the room. He was sure he had heard someone there, but the space was empty and he didn't remember renting it for the night. It wasn't the only time he had heard noises from there. Maybe there was a spirit hunting the room.

A/n: My fingers are itching to to write more about Rikimaru's suffering. He's just too good at that.XD


End file.
